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Category Archive: Center for Autism Research

With the entire city soaring from the Eagles Championship win, we can feel even better that our home team also has a heart for research. So take your Eagles fandom to the next level by joining your colleagues, patients, friends, and family on Team CHOP Research in the Eagles Autism Challenge. Not only will you help fund breakthroughs made right here at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for the thousands of children and families who are affected by autism, but you will have the opportunity to celebrate on the field with the NFC Champions themselves!

Smartphones, sports injury, and stories about science: This week in our Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia research roundup, 2018 is in full swing as our investigators made media headlines for their work to advance children’s health. Keep reading to learn about the different ways researchers at CHOP study the benefits and drawbacks of teens’ smartphone use, why research led by concussion experts at our Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) was featured in a recent philly.com article, and how experts in the Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program are weighing in on vitamins and supplements for mitochondrial disease.

The Finding:

In a new study that sheds light on a longstanding paradox in autism research, investigators showed how children and teens with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can have both stronger and weaker brain connections than their typically developing peers. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed that while individuals with ASD have weaker brain connections compared to their peers overall (a measure known as absolute connectivity), they simultaneously exhibited stronger connections within the brain networks implicated in attention and social cognition compared to their other networks (a measure known as relative connectivity). Additionally, the more these brain connections differed from typical development, the more severe the child’s ASD symptoms seemed to be.

Each new year comes with anticipation for the latest and greatest in the world of video games to be revealed. Which sequels will surpass their originals? Will beloved characters be reinvented? And we want to know: What brand-new entries are lined up that could offer an amazing experience in field of gaming for health?

The Center for Autism Research (CAR) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has several studies in the works that are looking at the feasibility of using video games and virtual reality to help children improve symptoms of autism. With engaging platforms and cutting-edge graphics, these games are aiming for a “high score” as easy-to-access, affordable, and effective interventions for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here’s a quick glance at what is on the horizon:

It was a big year for children’s health: We celebrated the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the world’s first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy this September, followed closely by approval of the very first gene therapy to treat inherited blindness this month — both of which have their roots at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. But besides the big headline-making breakthroughs (brilliant as they are), we wanted to know what other stories captivated our readers in 2017.

If you glance at a diagram of the continuum of translational research, the arrows point orderly to five phases — from basic research to improving population health. Rarely, however, is the business of discovery so neatly aligned. It takes unexpected twists and turns, as attendees at this week’s Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Translational Research Workshop for Basic Scientists heard from experienced investigators who shared lessons that they’ve learned while pursuing their scientific endeavors.

This week, new research findings at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are propelling the way we think about autism, single ventricle survivors, and neuroblastoma forward, as our investigators continued to push the boundaries of what we know.

September marks National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and this year at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, we kick-started the commemorative period on the heels of exciting news about breakthroughs in pediatric cancer immunotherapy research. Oncology investigators at CHOP also got a big boost in research funding from Hyundai’s nonprofit organization, Hope on Wheels. And that’s only the beginning: Since September marks the return of the football season, we’re thrilled to share the latest headlines on how the National Football League (NFL) is helping to drive concussion research.

The Findings:

A tantrum, a kick, a meltdown: In school-age children with autism, these aggressive and oppositional behaviors – described collectively as “challenging behaviors” – are some of the biggest struggles reported by parents and teachers. New research from the Center for Autism Research (CAR) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia suggests that these behaviors arise when children don’t have the skills they need to cope with situations or problems in an adaptive and healthy way. Working on skills such as emotion regulation, impulse control, cognitive inflexibility, and others that the researchers identified may be a helpful approach.